"Secret?" she echoed, with a wave of her hand to indicate the noise which the workmen were making.
"Upon whose authority was it begun?"
"Mine. Who else could give it?"
"Look here," he said, advancing toward her, "don't you try to fool me! You haven't done all this by yourself. Who hired these workmen?"
Remembering her first interview with him, she rose quickly before he could come near her. "Mr. Louden made most of the arrangements for me," she replied, quietly, "before he went away. He will take charge of everything when he returns. You haven't forgotten that I told you I intended to place my affairs in his hands?"
He had started forward, but at this he stopped and stared at her inarticulately.
"You remember?" she said, her hands resting negligently upon the back of the chair. "Surely you remember?"
She was not in the least afraid of him, but coolly watchful of him. This had been her habit with him since her return. She had seen little of him, except at table, when he was usually grimly laconic, though now and then she would hear him joking heavily with Sam Warden in the yard, or, with evidently humorous intent, groaning at Mamie over Eugene's health; but it had not escaped Ariel that he was, on his part, watchful of herself, and upon his guard with a wariness in which she was sometimes surprised to believe that she saw an almost haggard apprehension.
He did not answer her question, and it seemed to her, as she continued steadily to meet his hot eyes, that he was trying to hold himself under some measure of control; and a vain effort it proved.
"You go back to my house!" he burst out, shouting hoarsely. "You get back there! You stay there!"